- Sep 17, 2012
- 39
- 0
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Hi Everyone,
So I'm relatively new to the forums, and I am definitely new to owning a Fox Body. A couple of weeks ago, I bought a pretty sweet 87 GT Convertible (much to my wife's chagrin, of course lol). The guy I bought it from is a mechanic, and took great care of the car. There isn't a spec of rust anywhere on it, which after 33 years, is quite the feat. The only downside is that when I bought it, he told me that the radio didn't work. Now, I've installed aftermarket radios before, so I didn't think it would be a huge deal. Was I wrong...
The owner before the guy I bought from (I believe this was the original owner) installed an Alpine receiver in the car. Because it was broken, I pulled it out and then bought a new head unit and a wiring kit. As I took the radio housing out of the dash, I found a venerable rat's nest of wires in there that took me several hours to trace back. (Aside from the fact that it was wired as if someone were reading a "dummies" book while they were doing it, but I digress.) Turns out that whomever installed the Alpine receiver in the car cut into the factory wiring harness. And of course, there are three wiring harnesses in the housing: one with a wide gray plug for power, one with a wide black plug, and one fat gray one. Long story short, I wired up the adapter between the new radio and the factory wiring, and while the new radio gets power, no sound comes out of the speakers.
I flipped through the paperwork on the car and found that it was originally built with the premium sound system, so it has 6 speakers. I have a wire-tone generator, so I confirmed that what I thought were speaker wires were actually speaker wires (connected to the fat gray plug noted above), and also confirmed that all 6 speakers are operable. But, I can't get sound out of the radio for love or money. Does anyone have any ideas?
Much appreciated.
So I'm relatively new to the forums, and I am definitely new to owning a Fox Body. A couple of weeks ago, I bought a pretty sweet 87 GT Convertible (much to my wife's chagrin, of course lol). The guy I bought it from is a mechanic, and took great care of the car. There isn't a spec of rust anywhere on it, which after 33 years, is quite the feat. The only downside is that when I bought it, he told me that the radio didn't work. Now, I've installed aftermarket radios before, so I didn't think it would be a huge deal. Was I wrong...
The owner before the guy I bought from (I believe this was the original owner) installed an Alpine receiver in the car. Because it was broken, I pulled it out and then bought a new head unit and a wiring kit. As I took the radio housing out of the dash, I found a venerable rat's nest of wires in there that took me several hours to trace back. (Aside from the fact that it was wired as if someone were reading a "dummies" book while they were doing it, but I digress.) Turns out that whomever installed the Alpine receiver in the car cut into the factory wiring harness. And of course, there are three wiring harnesses in the housing: one with a wide gray plug for power, one with a wide black plug, and one fat gray one. Long story short, I wired up the adapter between the new radio and the factory wiring, and while the new radio gets power, no sound comes out of the speakers.
I flipped through the paperwork on the car and found that it was originally built with the premium sound system, so it has 6 speakers. I have a wire-tone generator, so I confirmed that what I thought were speaker wires were actually speaker wires (connected to the fat gray plug noted above), and also confirmed that all 6 speakers are operable. But, I can't get sound out of the radio for love or money. Does anyone have any ideas?
Much appreciated.